Harrismith and Platberg

Platberg, A Flat Topped Sandstone Mountain Standing Over The Town, Which The Berg Marathon Has Run Straight Up And Over Since 1922 One Of The Oldest Mountain Races In The World Above An N3 Junction Town That Has Been In Long Economic Decline And Is Honest About Being A Fuel Stop With A Mountain Behind It · Harrismith, Free State

Platberg is a great flat-topped sandstone mountain standing straight up out of the eastern Free State grassland, and since 1922 runners have gone straight up one side of it, across the plateau on top and down the other side - the Berg Marathon, one of the oldest mountain races anywhere in the world, and still run every October from the town below. The mountain is the reason this row exists. The town is not: Harrismith sits where the N3 and the N5 meet, it was founded in 1849, it had a long run as a railway and garrison centre, and it has since been in slow and visible economic decline for decades. Thousands of cars pass it every day and almost none of them stop. This row says all of that plainly, and then points at the mountain, which is a genuinely good walk with one of the best views in the province from the top of it, taking in the Drakensberg escarpment and a very long way of grassland.

Under the flat-topped Platberg where the N3 and N5 meet in the eastern Free State, Harrismith, Free State, South Africa

THE MOUNTAIN IS OPEN GROUND reached from the edge of town, free to walk, with routes up the escarpment that take two to four hours to the plateau depending on which you choose - and THE PLATEAU TOP IS EXPOSED WITH NO SHELTER AND NO WATER. The Berg Marathon runs in October and fills what accommodation the town has. Harrismith itself is an N3 and N5 junction town with fuel, supermarkets, banks and a hospital, and that is genuinely its main function for a traveller; SEVERAL MAIN-STREET PREMISES ARE PERMANENTLY SHUT and the town's decline is visible. The President Brand park and the old buildings around the centre are public. Johannesburg is 300 km north-west and the Drakensberg an hour south-east. MALARIA-FREE, and cold.

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